Final day of our vacation in Yamaguchi. I put in almost 1.5 km of swimming in the morning as well as some quality time in the hot tub. By 11 am we had checked out and were on our way to kill some time before our return flight to Tokyo.

First stop was a national treasure. A pagoda from 1452. Quite beautiful. Our second stop was a handicraft community building. Chie tried to be a colourful… Egg?

Our final stop was the anti-climax. We went to where Christmas tradition in Japan started. A quite modern white church with colourful somewhat kinky glass. Not so impressive compared to the massive, old cathedrals you find in Europe. And no Santa in sight!!!

After that we went as straight as we could (the car navigator was not the best) to the airport and by 16:30 we were back home.

There was not much to do at Kokian than spending time in our pool and hot tub. So that is what we were doing. Our room, or rather our own small villa, had a walled garden with enough greenery to keep it quiet and private from the few buildings around.

In the afternoon we had a look at the koi in the pond – we even had a chance to feed them 🙂 and then some more pooling and hot tubbing. I managed to do almost 1.9 km in the 7.5 meeter, 33 degrees hot pool.

After dinner we brought drinks and dessert out in the common garden, looked at stars and moon, and relaxed.

After having bathing several times both in the common onsen and in the hot tub at our balcony we checked out at 11 am. First stop on our way to Yamaguchi city was Mine and a 1 km long limestone cave, or rather an underground river. Beautiful and interesting. The “master” limestone in the cave was a 15 meters pillar that has taken more than 100000 years for mother earth to create.

After our hour and a half long stop in Mine we continued to Yamaguchi city for our stay at the Kokian ryokan. We had some trouble finding it but after some food at a McDonald’s we finally got the address and navigator right.

The afternoon and evening we spent in our own pool and hot tub. Well, we did some reading and eating too, but mostly our bodies were submerged in hot water.

The only difference from yesterday was that we slept in, did not watch any stars, and we had a walk in the afternoon. Otherwise we spent it just like yesterday, eating, bathing and relaxing.

Started our vacation early today by going to Haneda and fly to Ube in Yamaguchi-ken. From the airport we drove our rental car to Otozure ryokan, with just a short detour to watch a somewhat famous bridge.

The rest of the day we spent in the common ryokan onzen, on our balcony reading or in the hot tub. Relaxing!

We ended the evening by having a huge Japanese dinner before watching the stars or, more accurately, we watched the moon, Saturn and one start called Vega (25 lightyears away).